Hygge (pronounced hue-guh, not hig) is a Danish concept of living well and living simply – and I read that other countries in that area also practice hygge.  They must be doing something right because they are consistently topping the polls as the happiest people on earth – and it’s often put down to hygge.  

There’s been a huge buzz in the UK and USA about hygge in the past couple of years – trying to work out how the Danes and their neighbours do it. So what does hygge mean?

There is no literal translation, but I understand it‘s from a Norwegian word for well-being and it broadly means an approach to living that embraces positivity and enjoyment of everyday experiences. 

Hygge is more about a feeling or mood than a thing, and about a state of mind than a physical state – a feeling of contentment and well-being gained through enjoying the simple things in life.

• Spending quality time with friends and family.
• Keeping things simple in the kitchen – simple garden salad, or vegetable soup, wild greens stir-fry or perhaps vegetable omelet – all from just out our door harvested with the kids just a few moments before we prepare it together.
• Sitting down for dinner together every night as a family – especially when the kids decorate the table with drawings and flowers from the garden.
• Washing up together and just chatting.
• Picking up a warm egg that has just been laid.
• Taking my jar to my neighbour for some fresh warm jersey milk.
• Adding a splash of this milk to freshly ground and brewed coffee, and sitting with Evan to vision our day together and share great new ideas we’ve had or read. 
• Sharing a delicious homemade chocolate cake made by our 3 year old (with a bit of my help) using our friend’s honey, our own bananas, fair trade cocao and plastic-wrap free local organic flour.
• Drinking lemon myrtle, chocolate mint or rosella tea just harvested from my garden.
• Cuddling and playing with my kids every day, laughing, telling jokes, making up stories and songs together
• Taking a walk with my kids in the natural areas around our house and talking about what we see and hear, or actually, whatever thought or question pops into our minds.
• Curling up with my little one with a pile of good books.
• Watching Maia (10) and Hugh (9) swinging in their hammocks totally engrossed in their books.
• Playing chess and other long board games with my family.
• Watching my 3 yo smiling at the visiting king parrots on our verandah.
• Sitting in the garden chatting with the wild kangaroos that also live here.
• Going with our children and their friends to the river to splash, rock-hop and toast marshmallows on a little campfire.
• De-commissioning the TV
• Living in a place where there’s no mobile reception – we are still in a pre-mobile state of being
• Going for a ride up the country roads and talking with the cows, watching the clouds, and spotting rainbows up the valley.
• Waving at all the neighbours as they pass
• Having a good laugh and chatting with the ladies from my ecovillage in our aqua-aerobics class a few times a week
• Walking down the street in my local town, Maleny, and meeting up with so many friends along the way, and sharing smiles and a friendly greeting with everyone, whether I know them or not. It usually takes much longer that I expect, but that is just fine.
• Living in a home that we designed ourselves and built by hand with our family. Every little corner is infused with memories.
• Embracing a livelihood that allows me to work from our home and garden doing permaculture-related work that I love, with my husband, who I love working and being with.
• Learning with our children as we engage in fascinating homeschooling and world-schooling projects based on their curiosity and questions and meeting with passionate mentors. 

This is our living/dining room… a warm fireplace for winter using wood we collect onsite, a plate full of freshly harvested chillies, a vase of freshly picked fennel seeds, the vase is a wedding gift from my brother – it was made at the pottery where my gran used to go, the wall hanging we brought back from Turkey and reminds me of the amazing world adventures we have had with permaculture and all the amazing things people are doing around the world, the timber kitchen benches are hand crafted from a tree that fell just a few hundred metres from our home, the chairs are from the local tip shop, the walls are painted with non-toxic milk paint, the floors are from reclaimed timber, the top of the wall is made of glass to allow a gentle glow to reflect in from the external orange wall, children’s artwork decorates our walls, the banana smoothies are made from our homegrown bananas and sweetened a little with our friend’s honey, the bookshelf is full of interesting books for all ages, we placed the window above our kitchen bench just at the right height so we could look out to the trees and the Conondale Mountain range beyond.

Maia and Hugh chat about their homeschooling projects over a morning tea of banana smoothie they made using our own fruit. Their straws are reusable stainless steel. We usually go barefoot indoors and out – it’s certainly warm enough. The couch with lots of cushions usually has someone curled up reading or thinking. The louvre windows and doors are typically open allowing fresh air to flood into the house. There is a huge indoor-outdoor connection at our place.

My nine year old son took the picture of me (at the top of this post) last Saturday while I was working – touring 75 people through our ecovillage, home and garden.  I think it captures how I feel about my hyggelig life.